


Shelter in the Sands of Sleep

by Port



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Dreams, Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, In Media Res, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 08:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6746155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Port/pseuds/Port
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Conflict crossed Luke’s face. “When Alderaan was destroyed, my master was physically affected by the deaths of the billions of people so nearby. He almost fainted, and he had to rest.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shelter in the Sands of Sleep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [csichick_2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/csichick_2/gifts).



“There she is,” Poe said, as though there had never been any doubt. Finn halted his pacing in the small cockpit of the Falcon and leaned over Poe’s shoulder to look out the viewscreen. Meanwhile, the hum of the engines shifted as Poe inputted a new course heading.

“That blip over there? Are they intact? How soon can we get there?”

“Just a few minutes,” Poe responded. “Looks like the _Lasso_ ’s okay, just sitting out there with no power.” He frowned and tugged Finn’s arm to get him sitting in the copilot’s seat. “No, sensors are picking up life support.”

Finn nodded and gripped the edge of the console to keep himself from acting jittery. He felt like he might shake apart after all this time looking, not knowing what had happened. A steady hand landed on his shoulder.

“She’ll be okay,” Poe said.

Finn considered countering that they couldn’t possibly know that, but let it go in the spirit it was meant. On the screen, the tiny blip of light grew larger and larger, focusing into the little cruiser Luke and Rey hopped around the galaxy in, grey and orange paneling looking dull with all the viewports dark.

“No sign of battle damage. They must have had technical problems. Maybe something in the power conduits, to make all the systems go dark like that…. Still no comms either.”

Finn stood as they neared the cruiser. “Can we board?”

“Yeah, I’ll get us hooked up.” Poe turned around in his seat as Finn headed out of the cockpit. “Hey, I mean it, Finn. They’re gonna be okay.”

Finn imagined the airlink port sliding open to reveal Rey standing at the top, tired and hungry but alive and smiling wide enough to break her face. Somehow, though, he didn’t think that was going to happen. 

“How can you be so calm?” Finn asked, really wanting to know. When Rey was chill, he at least knew it came mostly from her Jedi training, but even after almost a year it was hard to understand where Poe got his calm from. “I know you love her as much as I do, so how are you not frantic?”

Poe looked down. “I am frantic. But I’m no good to Rey and Luke or you if I don’t take everything one step at a time. If they’re not okay, though….”

Now Finn found himself making promises he couldn’t follow through on. “They’re okay. I’m sorry, let’s--”

“Already coming in for linkup,” Poe said, turning around again to check the console. Finn wavered between running out to the port and saying something more, finally settling on putting his hands on Poe’s ears and kissing the top of his head.

“Force be with us,” Finn said as he ran out. Poe’s echo of the familiar saying followed him down the corridor.

~~

A few minutes later, Poe and Finn stood at the airlock as it beeped an affirmative connection with the other ship. Hydraulics hissed, and then the port slid open to reveal darkness above them.

“It wouldn’t have opened if life support wasn’t functioning,” Poe reminded him.

They nodded to each other and climbed the ladder into the narrow airlock. Finn emerged first into the dark space of the cruiser itself, then reached down to take the toolkit Poe handed up to him and then to give Poe a hand into the metal corridor. They both switched on their flashlights.

“Rey? Rey, are you here?” Finn called. He tried not to be disappointed she hadn’t met them here but found it difficult.

Only quiet answered their calls. “Come on, let’s get to the cockpit and find out what’s going on, see what we can fix,” Poe said. “It’ll be easier to search the ship with the lights on.” He waved his flashlight briefly to illustrate.

“You go. The rest of the ship is this way. I’ll get started searching.”

Poe nodded and briefly held a hand to Finn’s neck. “Be careful. Find them.”

Finn thought the best thing to do was make a circuit of the main areas, and then come back around to do a more thorough search of the smaller spaces if no one immediately turned up. He was halfway to the social area when his comm crackled to life with Poe’s voice.

“I got ‘em, Finn! Come to the cockpit!”

“They’re all right?”

“They’re--alive. Get up here quick.”

Finn raced back in the direction he’d come from. Poe had sounded mostly relieved and excited, but he hadn’t said everything was all right yet. 

He banged into several bulkheads on his way in the dark, but quickly made it to the cockpit. It was bigger than the _Falcon_ ’s, and twenty times cleaner and neater, with enough space for at least five people to stand behind the pilot and copilot seats. Finn shone his light around until Poe directed his own beam at the seats, where Luke and Rey sat slumped.

“Are they--”

“Pulses, both of them,” Poe said, not wasting time with too many words, something Finn really appreciated here and now. “They’re unconscious, unresponsive. We need to get them back to base.”

Finn leaned over Rey’s still form. “Can you tell what happened?”

Poe ran his flashlight beam over the console and the floor around Luke and Rey, as if looking again for clues. “There’s no blood, no sign of a fight. But neither of them will wake up.”

“Rey,” Finn said, tapping her cheek gently. Her skin felt dry and stiff. “Can you hear me?”

If she heard him, she didn’t respond. Her eyes were closed, and her breath shallow but even, color paler than usual. That slumped position had to be uncomfortable, so Finn picked her up and moved her to the floor, where she didn’t stir.

“Luke is the same,” Poe said. He stood by Luke’s seat but couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Rey. “Help me move him. I’ve gotta sit and see what’s what with the ship.”

As they lifted Luke off his seat, though, the man coughed and began to wake up. Poe muttered something under his breath that sounded like _thank the Force_ when Luke’s eyes fluttered open. His beard was uneven, probably with a full two days’ growth if he’d been asleep all this time. His skin had a pasty paleness about it. Probably dehydrated like Rey. Finn wanted to shake him and demand answers, especially since Rey was still showing no signs of waking up, but instead he took Poe’s lead by staying patient as Luke came back to himself.

After a couple minutes, Luke called out for Rey and sat up straight.

“Luke, are you all right?” Poe asked gently. He had one arm awkwardly around Luke’s shoulders to steady him, with the other hand poking around on the console, his attention split between helping their friend and getting the ship’s systems back online. Something beeped, and suddenly the low-grade emergency lighting kicked in, casting the cockpit in a blue glow. It wasn’t ideal, but it was better than shining lights in each other’s eyes.

“Rey,” Luke repeated. “I sense her, but…”

“She’s right here,” Poe said, something soothing in his voice. Finn wondered yet again at his partner’s compassion. Yes, Finn was worried about Luke too, very much so. He’d already watched one mentor die, and he didn’t want to see the same happen to this strange old man who was nothing like any Jedi Finn had ever imagined. But at this moment, Finn needed answers, first among them how to wake up Rey.

Luke scrambled down out of his chair onto the floor and crawled up to Rey’s side, not seeming to care when he crowded Finn to her other side. He took her limp hand and closed his eyes.

Finn cast a bewildered look up at Poe, who mirrored his expression.

“Luke,” Finn said. “What the hell happened out here?”

Luke ignored him; he seemed to be meditating over Rey. After a few moments, Poe turned back to the nav board, tension in the set of his shoulders. “I’m going to try rebooting before anything else. Maybe the ship’s log has answers.”

Finn thought about getting Luke and Rey some water, but he didn’t want to interrupt if Luke was healing her with the Force or something. With little else to do, he remained crouched next to Rey, one hand on her wrist, where her pulse reassured him.

“Got it,” Poe said a few minutes later, unnecessarily. The ship’s computer made a whining noise as it restarted, and a few seconds later the blue emergency lights were replaced by the brighter white lights that illuminated the entire space. Finn rubbed his eyes to help them adjust, but Poe didn’t seem affected as he went immediately to the ship’s log, scowling when it didn’t load fast enough.

“Does it tell us anything?”

Poe was scanning the text. “I think…”

“We’re in the Hosnian System,” Luke interrupted, gravely.

“That’s right,” Finn said. He looked down at Rey, but she was still deeply asleep. “We got your distress burst two days ago and came looking.” With the First Order still at large, Resistance ships couldn’t risk a continuous distress signal when they got into trouble. The burst went out once, alerting the Resistance to go looking near the last known whereabouts of its agents. The First Order might pick up the burst too, but had no way to know where to look. “When we got here, there was only life support on, and you and Rey were out.”

Luke nodded vaguely, gazing into the air. “Yes, we completed our mission in the Derbi System, but came across the First Order on our way out. In order not to be noticed, we crossed into the Hosnian System and stuck close to the debris of one of the planets.”

Poe made an affirmative noise. “That would be what killed your systems. You managed to avoid detection but there’s a lot of radiation coming off the debris. Finn and I have been keeping clear to avoid the same problem.” He glanced down at the ship’s log again. “Looks like you were able to get enough momentum going to get clear yourselves as everything began shorting out.” He paused. “But it looks like autopilot had kicked in by that time.”

Luke shook his head. “We should never have come to the Hosnian System. She’s so young, and I… am not the man I used to be. It was too much.”

“What was too much?” Finn asked. “What happened here?”

Conflict crossed Luke’s face. “When Alderaan was destroyed, my master was physically affected by the deaths of the billions of people so nearby. He almost fainted, and he had to rest.”

Finn and Poe glanced at each other, but Luke continued.

“I was too inexperienced in the Force to notice, even when we came upon the remains of the planet itself. But here, even a year after the terrible destruction of this system, I can feel….”

“What, ghosts?” Finn demanded. Like most of the rest of the galaxy, he still hadn’t come to terms with the enormity of what the First Order had done to the countless beings on the planets in this system. There was never time, and it evaded conceptualizing, even though he understood intellectually that everything was gone. It had never occurred to him that there could be anything left here to disturb anyone, much less a Jedi knight and his apprentice.

“Echoes,” Luke said sharply. “Powerful waves of suffering. It overwhelmed me, drew me into… a dream.”

Finn pointed at Rey. “Is she dreaming too?”

Luke nodded. “I fell into a trance, and she followed to wake me up. It took her all this time, but she was persistent, and when I sensed you nearby, it was somehow enough.”

Finn kept his mouth shut, even though he wanted to ask why Luke was affected while Rey was able to choose to go in after him. He caught a look from Poe, who seemed equally determined not to comment. Luke Skywalker had spent years alone after his student and nephew Kylo Ren butchered all of his other students. The man Rey had coaxed back from hermitude was not the hero from the stories. Finn admired Luke, but it was because he struggled to overcome so much that was still unresolved. What had happened here was disappointing, but not very surprising.

“Okay, so why wasn’t it enough for Rey? Why didn’t she come back with you?”

“I think it’s harder to come back than to go in,” Luke murmured. He leaned over her again, whispered something in her ear. Finn and Poe both paused expectantly, but Rey didn’t stir, and Luke sat back up again on his knees.

Finn leaned down to press a quick kiss to Rey’s lips, then stood up. “Rey will come back. I’ll get you some water, Luke.”

He spent a few minutes gathering supplies from the rest of the ship, then returned to find Poe and Luke where he had left them. Luke had shifted to a cross-legged position by Rey’s head, while Poe was running systems diagnostics.

“Will she fly again?” Finn asked Poe. He handed him and Luke each a container of water and gave Luke a package of crackers. For Rey, he’d brought a pillow and blanket. She must be freezing.

“A lot of the sensors especially will need work,” Poe answered. “But the self-repair systems seem to have kicked in. I think we’ll have engines and thrusters in a few hours. We should be good to fly back soon after. That’s if we don’t all board the _Falcon_ right now and come back for the _Lasso_ later.”

In the end, that was what they decided to do, even though it meant moving Rey. When Luke volunteered that leaving the Hosnian System could make it easier for Rey to leave the trance, there was really no question.

They got her settled in the bunk they all shared when traveling on the _Falcon_ together, and something settled in Finn to see her comfortably swathed in blankets on a mattress. She looked less unconscious and more asleep; even though he knew better, it was easier to imagine her waking up now. 

While Poe handled disengaging from the _Lasso_ and starting back for base, Finn and Luke stood awkwardly watching Rey. He was thinking that she’d really hate them doing that if she knew, when Luke suddenly didn’t seem to be doing well, stumbling in place.

“Whoa, careful, there,” he said, bracing his friend. “Let’s get you sitting down.”

He guided Luke, despite the man’s protests, to the other cabin. “You’ve been in a weird Force trance for more than two days, and you haven’t eaten your crackers yet. Rest up. We’ll look after Rey.”

It was only a little concerning when Luke actually did as Finn asked, laying back on his cot to stare up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry, Finn,” he said, which was so unusual an admission to hear from the old man that Finn froze. “This is my fault. I’ve taught Rey everything I could, but I avoided almost everything having to do with the mind. My mind is unwell, and I didn’t want her to see. So she was not prepared for this.”

Finn thought again of his earlier evaluation: disappointing, but not surprising. It was a judgment that had been applied to him often in his former life, and it might be true, but it wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. 

When he went back to Rey, Poe was sitting against the headboard, her head on his thigh, and running his fingers through the loose sections of her hair. It looked very soothing. Finn carefully climbed over them to lie along Rey’s other side. He hoped their warmth was sinking down into her dream.

Finn began repeating a mantra in his mind. _Wake up. Come back to us._ He only realized he was doing it when Poe began to speak.

“Rey, it’s time to come back now.” His voice was low and beckoning. “You and Luke finished your mission, but there’s more for us to do. We have more work, but you like the work. You like the recon and meeting shady informants and flying the _Lasso_ and the _Falcon_ and my own damn X-Wing. You like talking with BB-8 and you love getting to know the General better. You’ve told me that you like her very much and want to ask her to tell you more about Han Solo one day, when she seems ready to talk about him. You like training to be a Jedi with Luke, even though there are things he won’t tell you. You like Luke’s old lightsaber, even though at first you hated it. You like drinking with my pilots and making them laugh. Are you hearing me?”

It didn’t seem like she was, but Finn said, “Keep going.”

Poe said, “What if she doesn’t--”

“One step at a time, right?” Finn released his grip on Rey’s hand to clasp one of Poe’s. They both squeezed.

“Rey,” Poe whispered. “I know our lives are difficult, but come back. There’s so much you like, and there’s so much more I want to show you. The old ruins where I grew up. We made them livable, with water systems and solar power and a lot of clever adaptations. You’d love seeing how it all works. I bet you’d be a smarty-pants and upgrade it all in ways we never imagined.” He paused to smile, probably imagining just that. Finn could see it too. “I’ve told you about this before, but we have a tree Luke himself gave my parents. What I haven’t told you is that I want to stand with you under its branches one night and kiss you.”

He stopped for a time, then continued.

“I want to take you to Corellia and show you the strange racing they do there. They have special vehicles fitted with wheels instead of traditional repulsors, and they go around a track with high mounds, and fly into the air at speed, then come down without missing a beat. It’s amazing, and kind of funny, but also exciting. And there’s all kinds of good food on Corellia. I guess there’s good food everywhere, but Corellian food is something special. I used to eat a lot of it at the Academy, with my friends, and I want to see how you and Finn like it.

“And then there’s the Academy. Damnit. I wish I could take you there, show you where I was trained. I wish you had the chance to go there too, once the war is over, if you wanted to. They have science specialties-- _had_ science specialties. You’d have done great there. But there are other schools in the galaxy. We could finish the war, and you could go anywhere you want, learn anything, and become the only Jedi who practices a trade.”

Finn laughed, despite how compelling Poe’s vision was. He buried his face in the crook of Rey’s neck and whispered, “He means it. Come back to us, Rey.”

Poe spoke until his voice went hoarse. He slid down so that he was lying by her side as well, with their clasped hands resting lightly over Rey’s stomach. His breathing evened out, which always drew Finn to sleep right after him.

_Outside, the wind blew sand up against the exterior panels of the fallen AT-AT. The wind was swift, the sand noisy and liable to bury the old transport vehicle one day. Finn had a sense that he might need to scout out a new place to live if that ever came close to happening, and with it came a sort of repressed nostalgia. It was an AT-AT, but it was also home._

_These weren’t his thoughts._

_He turned and saw Poe standing by a little makeshift stove. Recognition lit up Poe’s face as they noticed each other. It was hard to talk or move, a bit like walking against a strong wind, but they made it to each other and held hands in this strange place. There was no color anywhere, and the sound of sand scoring the outer walls was ceaseless. Together, they turned about, looking for Rey._

_There she was. Finn pointed, voice lost to the wind as he told Poe to look. There in a little room off to the side. A child’s cabin on a light cruiser, with small furniture, toys, and colorful alien wall hangings._

_She sat on the little bed with Luke sitting cross-legged on the floor before her, their heads bent close together, deep in conversation. Luke shook his head, eyes closed against whatever she was saying, but Rey rested her hand on his shoulder and continued speaking until he could look at her again. She smiled earnestly at Luke, then seemed to notice Finn and Poe standing at the threshold._

_Her smile became one of delight._

_“Wake up. Come back to us,” Finn said. Poe echoed his words. Neither could be heard over the wind and the sand, but Rey nodded in agreement at them, said something, and_

placed her hand atop their joined ones over her stomach. 

**End**


End file.
